Our Approach

Supporting new generations of young people to create a just world

CFS takes an innovative approach to civic engagement, leadership development, and movement building. Our programs, resources and trainings invite young people and adult allies to study of the work of past movements, deepen their understanding of current social problems, build new coalitions and develop strategies for change.

Anti-Oppression Practices

CFS uses social justice and anti-oppression practices to work to transform oppression into liberation by naming, analyzing, implementing and teaching actions that dismantle systems of supremacy that give power and privileges to some at the expense of others.

Popular Education

Popular education incorporates past history alongside current history and experiences creating an intergenerational dialogue and open space that uses critical learning and reflection as tool to analyze power and change issues in our communities for the better.

>5,000

Adults trained in anti-oppression practices, community organizing skills, and social justice-based youth development to support youth-led activism

Healing Practices

CFS uses healing and wellness practices to holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence as an integral part of our movement work, bringing collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds. (Adopted from Cara Page.)

History of Freedom Schools

Freedom schools are part of a long history of liberatory education spaces that worked to liberate people from oppression using popular education. The freedom schools established by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964 sought to counter systemic undereducation of Black students in Mississippi. The 6-week curriculum included black history, the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement, leadership development in addition to instruction in reading and math. The goal was to not only teach academics but to prepare young people to actively counter the racist power structure in Mississippi. The freedom schools had hoped to draw at least 1000 students that summer and ended up with close to 2,500. The Chicago Freedom School builds on the builds on the freedom school model by seeking to enhance Chicago youth’s connection to their histories and serving as a catalyst for youth-led social change today.